


Max and Moritz

by bonotje



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Frogs, Gen, Kid Fic, small injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28032192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonotje/pseuds/bonotje
Summary: “Look!” Lando says, pointing at the ground to where a little dark green frog was sitting on the path. It looked completely unbothered by the six small boys crowding around it, happily blowing up the bubble in its throat.Or Max finds a little frog.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	Max and Moritz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BearWithAHat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BearWithAHat/gifts).



> Written for this prompt I got from Laura when I asked for random prompts in the discord whilst bored at work: "Max petting a frog." 
> 
> So yeah hope you like this 😊

They’ve been playing at the playground for about an hour, their bikes all piled together next to the swings. Right now they’re all so bored though. Max is kicking at the bark chippings on the ground. Pierre is sitting at the top of the slide, kicking his legs against it in a thump, thump, thump. Alex, George and Charles are all at the swings, Charles standing up on the seat, whilst Alex has twisted the seat round and round. And then there’s Lando hanging upside down from the monkey bars. It was fun for a bit, but now they’re just so bored. 

Suddenly Charles jumps off of the swing, the swing clanging loudly as it twists and turns, appearing right next to Max. 

“Dare you to ride down the hill on your bike as fast as you can.”

“What’s in it for me?” Max replies quickly, the hill is very steep, but he wants to show Charles he’s better than him. Him and Charles always had a bit of a rivalry going, both of them wanting to one up the other. Their friends had long since given up on trying to stop them, just rolling their eyes at whatever stupid stuff they got into this time. 

Charles thinks about it for a while, his eyebrows knitting together as he comes up with a good bargain. He chews on his bottom lip as he really thinks it over, before his face lights up. He’s figured it out then. Oh boy. 

“I’ll give you my Groudon Pokémon card,” Charles says determinedly, the loud gasps of their friends the only sounds for a while. Max eyes the hill, it’s really very steep, they only ever go down it with their brakes firmly squeezed, inching down slowly. He’s seen some older boys race down it though, not afraid of the height. He can do it. For a Groudon, he can definitely do it!

“Deal!” Max holds out his hand towards Charles, waiting for the other boy to grasp it. Their friends gather round them as they shake on it, Lando, the littlest of them all staring up at Max with wide eyes. 

“Lando, you go wait down there,” George speaks up, urging the 6 year old to wait down the hill. They never let him cycle down, none of them wanting to have to bring an injured Lando home to Ciska Norris. 

“But!”

“Lando, come on. You’ll probably have a better view down there anyway,” Alex reasons with the younger boy. Lando seems to still want to argue with them, but one pointed look from Pierre shuts him up. Lando always listens to Pierre, the oldest of them, having about 2 months on Alex. With a disgruntled huff Lando grabs his bright blue bike and starts to walk down the hill, his helmet dangling from the handlebars. 

As they watch Lando slowly make his way down the hill, curls bouncing with each step, Max goes to grab his bike. The bright orange frame standing out between his friends’ blue and green bikes. He rolls it up to the top of the hill, takes his helmet from the handlebars and pulls it over his head. As he clicks the buckle in place under his chin, the coarse fabric digging into his skin, what he signed up for finally sinks. He looks down the hill and swallows thickly, dang it was really steep. 

“You gonna chicken out?” Charles says with a smirk playing on his lips. He’s wearing an obnoxiously bright yellow t-shirt and dark blue shorts, sunglasses dangling from the collar of the shirt because he likes to pretend he’s cool. He’s not though, he’s as much of a nerd as the rest of them are. 

He looks down the hill again, to where Lando is sitting cross legged at the bottom of it now. He’s tugging at the blades of grass with a scowl, peering up at the hill as he waits for them. He looks very small all the way down there. 

“Bwak, bwak, bwaaak,” Charles eggs him on when Max doesn’t say anything. 

“Shut up, I’m going.” Max kicks the kickstand up and swings his leg over the back of the bike. 

“Come on Max, you can do it!” Lando shouts from the bottom of the hill, jumping up and down now. 

He grins down at his friend, feet lifting from the ground and with one hard push he’s off. He’s barrelling down the hill, pedalling faster and faster. Everything around him is starting to blur, a blur of greens following him down the hill. He keeps pedalling, faster and faster until his legs can barely keep up with the pedals. He’s almost down the hill when suddenly he hears Lando shout; 

“Look out!” 

He glances up at Lando and then back down at the path and then he sees it, a small little animal sitting right in the middle of the path. He squeezes the brakes hard, the tires squeaking as he swerves away from the creature. He feels his bike give way underneath him, making him lose his balance until he crashes onto the rough surface of the path. 

“Ahh!” He cries out, his knee and elbow screaming in pain as they scratch over the coarse-grained ground. His hands grab at his hurt knee immediately as he curls up into himself to try and stop the pain, eyes squeezed shut tightly, tears welling up behind his closed eyelids. 

“Max! Max, are you alright?” He can hear Lando calling out to him, his voice coming closer and closer. Then suddenly he feels the bike lift away from him and as he blinks open his eyes slowly he can see his friend leaning over him, Max’s bright orange bike held in his tiny hands. 

Slowly he pushes himself up from the ground, sitting up to assess the damage now that the initial pain is eased. There’s a nasty looking graze on his knee, bright red and full of dirt and it stings like crazy. He hisses softly as he stretches his leg gently. 

“I’m okay,” he quickly reassures Lando. Then suddenly they hear a lot of shouting, and as they look up they can see Charles, Pierre, Alex and George running down the hill, all calling out his name. Charles is a blur of yellow as he rushes down the path in front of anyone else, his bright yellow shirt a stark contrast to his bright red face. 

“Watch out!” Lando shouts again, stopping Charles in his tracks, the other boys barreling into him from behind. It’s like a scene from a cartoon, Pierre runs into Charles first and then Alex and George follow behind, the latter toppling over backwards from the impact. 

“Ouch,” he whines as he falls onto his bum. 

“What are you shouting for Lando?” Pierre asks, sounding a little annoyed as he does so. His hand still curled around Charles’ elbow from where he’d stopped his friend from falling over as they’d all barrelled into him. 

“Look!” Lando says, pointing at the ground to where a little dark green frog was sitting on the path. It looked completely unbothered by the six small boys crowding around it, happily blowing up the bubble in its throat. 

The pain from his knee and elbow forgotten for now Max shuffles over to where the creature is sitting. Slowly he holds his hand out towards the little animal, inching it closer so as not to frighten it. When his hand is right in front of the frog it stretches its legs and jumps into Max’s hand, not frightened by him at all. 

“Hey there buddy, you scared us,” Max speaks softly, raising his hand closer to his face to take a proper look at the animal. It doesn’t appear to be hurt in any way, happy to just sit in Max’s hand. It blinks slowly back at Max, before letting out a croak and blowing up its bubble again. 

“Aren’t you precious,” he murmurs as he softly pets his finger over the frog’s head. The little frog croaks happily at him, so he gives it a few more pets, before he starts to get back onto his feet, hissing softly as he feels the sting in his knee. 

“Aww, he kinda looks like you,” Lando chuckles, his wide grin showing off where his two front teeth are missing. His hair is a mess and there’s a giant plaster on his chin from when he fell off his scooter the other day, but he loves to run with the ‘big’ kids. 

“Does not,” Max huffs, gently rubbing his finger over the top of the frog’s head again. He really hopes his mum will let him keep it, he’s already feeling attached to the animal, even though it made him fall from his bike. Oh no his bike!

“Does so.” Lando counters, pushing at his shoulder, still giggling, but Max is already frantically looking his bike over, making sure there aren’t any scratches on it. His dad will kill him if he ruins it. He’d only gotten it recently, for his birthday, his father pressing unto him that he needed to be really careful with it.

He carefully folds his hand on top of the one holding the froggy, making sure it won’t escape, as he circles the bike. He sighs out in relief as he finds it unscathe, just a little dirty from the sand it had fallen into. 

“Are you gonna keep it?” Pierre asks curiously, trying to peek under his fingers to catch another glimpse of the frog. 

“If my mum lets me,” Max nods, head moving up and down fast and a bright grin on his face. “Can you help me get my bike up? I don’t wanna drop him.”

Pierre picks up the bike for him, holding it as Max unclasps his helmet with one hand. After he’s taken it off he presses a soft kiss against the top of the frog’s head and carefully places it into the upturned helmet. Then he hangs the helmet onto the handlebars, the frog happily bobbing along as the helmet swings a little. 

“Thanks,” he smiles at Pierre as he grabs hold of his bike, “Come on let’s go beg my mum for me to keep him!”

The walk back home is slow. He can’t cycle home with his helmet now otherwise occupied and he can’t walk too fast either, afraid the helmet will swing too much and the frog will fall out, but eventually they make it. It’s getting close to dinner time and he can see the smoke coming from the barbeque already. 

Their parents are chatting loudly in the garden when they push open the gate. George’s dad is standing at the barbeque looking over the food with a ridiculous muscle apron on. Pierre and Charles’ dads chatting with him, whilst their mums are chatting together, a glass of rosé in their hands. Over on the other side of the garden Max’s mum is showing Lando’s mother the flowers she planted last weekend and Alex’s parents are chatting with George’s mum. Lando’s dad is walking out from the kitchen with some more bottles of beer for the men. Everyone is there, well apart from his own father, but he’s not complaining about that. 

As the gate squeaks open all eyes turn towards them, smiles appearing on their faces. Probably because for once they seem to all be getting along together. No squabbling Max and Charles, nor Lando complaining about being left out because he’s a baby. 

Then his mama’s eyes fall onto his scraped knee and she calls out “Oh Max, liefje what did you do to your knee?” 

She kneels down in front of him and carefully looks at his injured knee, her thumb brushing over the scrape to wipe away some of the dirt. Then grabbing his elbow when she sees that there’s a graze on that as well. 

“‘s nothing, mama,’ Max says with a shrug, trying to get her to stop fussing over him, he’s not a baby, ‘but mama, mama look!” 

He carefully reaches into his helmet and waits for the little frog to jump back into his hands. The animal seems to consider it for a second, blinking slowly, before it stretches its legs and jumps into Max’s waiting hands. 

“Oh, where’d you get that?” His mum asks, looking at the animal curiously. 

“The park. Can I keep it mama, pleeeeaaassseeee?”

“I-”

“Please, I promise I’ll take good care of him! He’s so cute mama, look!” Max rushes out, petting the frog’s tiny head again, showing his mother how docile the little creature is. His friends have run off to their parents now, only little Lando still stood by his side, a similar pair of puppy eyes on his face as they both look up at Sophie, begging her to let Max keep the frog. 

“I… We’ll see okay Maxje, you’d need to take good care of it. Not just for a few days, you’ll need to really take care of it.” 

“I will, I promise mama.”

“Okay then, you can keep it.”

“YES! Thank you mama, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Max exclaims, wrapping his free arm around his mum’s waist in a hug, the other hand carefully cradled against his chest to keep the frog safe. He lets his mama ruffle his hair softly, before he rushes off to his friends to tell them the good news. 

“I can keep him!”

There’s a mix of,  _ Really? _ ,  _ Oh my god that’s awesome! _ , and other exclamations as Max sits down at the kids table with his friends. He lets the frog jump out of his hands and onto the picnic table, the froggy croaking happily at him. He reaches out his finger towards the animal, laughing softly as it tries to bite at it. He puts his finger down onto the table and grins when the frog jumps over it. His friends all want a go after of course, the frog happily complying and jumping over the held out digits. 

“Wait! He needs a name,” Alex says after the frog has jumped over his pointer finger. 

“Oh, oh, call him frogger!” Pierre suggests. 

“No, that’s boring! You should name him Kermit,” George suggests instead. 

“As if that’s not just as boring, no what about uhm Ribbit,” Charles says, his finger brushing over the top of the, as yet unnamed, frog’s head. 

“Sir Hopsalot,” Lando squeaks, a massive toothy grin on his face. 

His friends keep suggesting names, but none of them seem to fit the little creature sat in front of him. They were all just so cliché? Like you’d ask any kid to name an animal and you’d get these names. Lando’s Sir Hopsalot was quite fun, sure, but he wanted something that didn’t immediately scream ‘oh this is a frog’. 

“What should we name you buddy?” Max asks the dark green frog, thinking it over. The frog blinks up at him, blows up his bubble again, before it takes a big leap and jumps off of the table. 

“No!” All of them shout, scrambling up from the benches of the picnic table and trying to grab the animal. It had been so calm, so docile as they’d taken it home, but now it was leaping about through the garden, slipping between their fingers every time they came close to catching it. 

“Guys! Guys stop, you’re scaring him!” Max shouts. 

His friends stop in their tracks, looking at him with wide eyes, but not moving. Slowly Max crouches down, getting onto his hands and knees to take a look at the grass, trying to see if he can catch a glimpse of the tiny little frog somewhere between the leaves. He crawls around slowly, searching for a speck of darker green until finally he sees the small animal. 

“Hey buddy, no need to be frightened. Just don’t scare us like that again yeah?” Max whispers, holding his hand out towards the frog, hoping it would just hop into his hand like before. The frog stretches its legs and leaps up, instead of jumping into Max’s waiting hand though it jumps up higher, right into Max’s face. 

Max splutters as the frog crashes into his face, before falling down again, his hands reaching out quickly to catch it. His friends are cackling with laughter, but it’s as if at that moment a lightbulb lit up above his head, he has the perfect name for this tricky little creature. He’d read the book a few weeks ago, together with his mum, his finger moving along the lines as he read the words out loud. It had been one of his favourite books, two mischievous boys pulling off their tricks and pranks. Max and Moritz.

“Right, now please stay there Moritz,” Max mutters as he closes his left hand over the hand holding the frog. It really is the perfect name for the frog that had just jumped right into his face, being a little trickster. 

So Max and Moritz they would be. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Putting this note here so as not to spoil too much, but thanks to Clio for helping me come up with the froggy's name and inadvertently also the title of the fic
> 
> Thank you for reading and as always kudos and comments make my little writers heart soar. And you can find me on tumblr at [sleepyverstappens](http://www.sleepyverstappens.tumblr.com) Prompts are always welcome as well :D


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